


Improvisation

by dewinter



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Eric Dier Is Very Bad At Dirty Talk, M/M, Phone Sex, Separation Anxiety, The Rona
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:56:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23613382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dewinter/pseuds/dewinter
Summary: “Come on, not like you’ve got anything better to do.”“Who says?”Eric raises his eyebrows. “Del, you did ajigsaw.”*Boredom and FaceTime and (terrible) phone sex, oh my!
Relationships: Dele Alli/Eric Dier
Comments: 9
Kudos: 60





	Improvisation

**Author's Note:**

> I was meant to be writing...something else, but it got derailed by COVID-19 and my inability to focus on literally _anything_ else right now. This fic is set during lockdown and does include references to the pandemic, so if you'd rather not read about that, maybe skip this one. I hope everyone is well and safe.

Hugo’s the first to go. His kids are clambering all over him, and he’s laughing, and trying to finish the quad stretches they’re meant to be finishing with, but it’s clear it’s a lost cause.

“I’m going, I’m going,” Hugo says, laughing, and waving, and then he’s gone, and the screen rearranges itself to fill his absences, all their little tiles shuffling back into a neat grid.

And then Ben goes, and then Troy, and Eric waves at the rest of them and tells them he’ll see them same time tomorrow, and he just catches Carlos chastising Toby to keep pushing that left Achilles, before he leaves the call. He stares at the black, blank screen for a moment, his chest heaving, the little gym silent except for his breathing.

He changes into jogging bottoms and a clean t-shirt, and wipes down the kettlebell and the mat slowly. It’s only noon, and bleak outside. It’s been a week – less.

His phone lights up, and though he’s not in the mood – he wants to sleep, or maybe just stare at the ceiling for a couple of hours, feeling his muscles twitch, coaxing Lady Gaga and Eric Prydz back out of his brain, thinking about death – he picks up.

“Fuck you wearing a beanie inside for?”

Like Eric doesn’t wear a beanie inside most of the time. He shrugs. “Just keeping warm.”

Dele laughs, as if Eric said something funny. It feels like they’ve not spoken for weeks, though Eric saw him five minutes ago, scowling through the second circuit of dorsal raises, perspiring picturesquely.

“What you doing now?” Dele asks. He’s looking off to one side, scratching his nose. Eric shrugs again, because he’s been planning to ring his mum to ask what ericaceous compost is and whether he absolutely, _definitely_ needs it if he’s planting azaleas, and he knows Dele won’t give a shit about that.

“Lunch, I s’pose.” He’s trudging back upstairs to the kitchen, which is what makes him think of it, rather than any particular pang of hunger.

“Bo-oring.”

“Gotta eat, Del.”

“What you having, then?” Dele’s preening, tilting the phone so he can get a better angle. As though there’s a bad one.

“You don’t care what I’m having for lunch.”

Eyebrow up, like clockwork. “Who says I don’t care? Don’t want you getting fat, Diet.”

“Won’t, if we’ve got to do more of that every morning. What they got you doing this afternoon?”

Dele sniffs. “Free weights, mostly. Bit of leg stuff. You?”

“Treadmill. Just – fucking treadmill till my legs fall off.”

Eric props his phone against the pepper mill so he can talk to Dele while he’s slicing up a chicken breast for his sandwich. Dele’s by the pool; he can tell by the slight echo and the light rippling occasionally over his face. On one of the loungers, maybe, one knee splayed out.

“You okay, Del?” he asks, when what he means is _have you gone mad yet_ and maybe, a little bit, _do you miss me._

“Yeah, I’m alright,” Dele says, smiling a bit. The joke’s lost on Eric, if there is one. Dele stretches a bit, curving his spine. “Finished my jigsaw.”

“Well done.”

“Fuck off.”

“Why don’t you read a book?”

Dele scowls. “I’ll hang up on you.”

Eric’s turn to laugh. He grabs a tomato; it’s days past its best and collapses under the knife. “Wouldn’t kill you.”

“Not gonna take the risk though, am I?”

This is how things go, these days. _These days._ The days since. Keep things light. Survival mode. Same banter, different world. It could be weeks. They keep changing their minds. Deadlines getting pushed back. _Under review._ It could go on forever. Eric keeps trying to remember how Dele’s skin feels. Or studs on a pitch. The tang of sweat and mud and Deep Heat – dressing room smell. Or how Dele tastes.

Dele’s quiet. He’s just watching him, slow-blinking, fidgeting. They’d be sitting around at Hotspur Way about now, flicking their shins in the pool, or taking ages unlacing their boots, thighs maybe pressed together. Kicking idle conversation back and forth – the real stuff saved for another day. The days all the same – always more and better time, until there’s not.

Eric lays the knife down on the chopping board and picks his phone up again. Dele’s smirking – the sort of smirk he uses as armour, the sort where he’s pretending he’s okay.

“What’s up, Del?”

Dele’s eyes flick sideways. “Nothing. Stop mangling that tomato.”

Eric walks through the kitchen to the sun room, as though looking for privacy, though he’s the only one in the house. Privacy from the tomato. Or maybe it’s that Dele belongs in certain, softer, brighter rooms. _This_ Dele, who’s pretending things are fine and ringing Eric in the middle of the day to act like he’s interested in what he’s having for lunch.

“What’s up?” he says again, sinking into an armchair.

“Why would anything be up?”

Eric laughs. The air’s different in here, close and warm. “Dunno. Global catastrophe. No football. Take your pick.”

Dele shrugs. “Bored.”

_Do you miss me?_ Eric swallows. “Yeah. Me too. Could be worse. I can deal with bored. I think.”

“When d’you think –”

“How should I know? Month, maybe. Two? Can’t see us finishing the season.”

Dele fidgets again, scratching his stomach. Maybe what he meant was _when d’you think we’ll see each other again._ It’s what Eric’s been thinking, several times an hour. Dele’s skin glows blue. Eric can almost conjure the feeling of it.

“We could – I dunno, watch a film or something?” he says dully. It’s not the brightest idea he’s ever had.

“Nah,” Dele says. “Just wanna. I dunno. Just – just wanna watch you doing stuff. Fucking up that tomato - whatever. Just – doing stuff.”

Eric’s throat goes tight. “S’weird, Del. I’m – you just said you were bored, you sure you wanna –”

“ _Miss you,_ ” Dele says, suddenly, softly. He’s not looking away, this time. He’s looking straight at Eric.

Eric swallows. The tightness stays. “Yeah,” he whispers. “Yeah, me too.” Sincerity blooms in readier supplies, these days. _These days._

“Fucking – it’s so fucking _unfair._ ”

Eric doesn’t say anything. It’s the same selfish, childish thought that chases the others round Eric’s brain. Some of them scary; some of them petulant. _What if this is the end of everything. What if it’s not the same, afterwards_. They were on the brink, before everything fell apart. Verging on the right side of serious. Or at least that’s what it felt like to Eric. Like tributaries knitting into a stream.

“Just – wish we could –”

They both fall silent. That’s been happening more and more. It doesn’t work the same, over the phone. Like something gets corrupted in the code, like whatever ones and zeroes make up the digital synapses flooding between them are choking the life out of the conversation. They talk over each other, or lapse into stunted, cringing silences. It’s been a week. Sometimes Eric wonders if they’ll even be speaking to each other, once it’s all over.

Dele fidgets. Eric’s close to maudlin again, and he forces a grin onto his face and sits up straighter.

“Well, gotta keep you entertained,” he says. “You’re dangerous when you’re bored.” _You’re a fucking nightmare,_ is what he doesn’t say.

Dele grins back, and even if he doesn’t feel like it, at least he’s following Eric’s cue, keeping up the farce – this is the same old banter, no matter what’s going on outside.

Eric feels stupid, suddenly. Dele’s not interested in his lunch, or in telling him about the jigsaw he’s done. Eric throws a glance at his phone, and at Dele, draped over the lounger like a goddess in a painting.

“Could have a wank,” he says. It’s abrupt, and awkward, and his voice cracks on it, but it’s better than winnowing the feeling in his chest when Dele says things like _miss you._ And anyway, it’s why Dele’s ringing him, he realises now, belatedly.

“Pervert,” Dele says, but his hand’s still on his stomach, and the corner of his mouth is twitching, and Eric can feel himself getting hard.

“You’re the one FaceTiming _me_.”

“Yeah – who says I wanna see you –”

“Fine – bye then,” Eric says, and tips the phone so Dele can see his fingers tucked inside the waistband of his joggers.

“Dickhead,” Dele says.

“Come on, not like you’ve got anything better to do.” 

“Who says?”

Eric raises his eyebrows. “Del, you did a _jigsaw._ ”

Dele laughs, high-pitched and unguarded. It echoes. “You gonna make me come, then, Diet? Or are you just as shit at it on the phone?”

Eric thinks he’ll probably have to think quite seriously, once everything’s over, and life is normal again, if it ever is, about why Dele insulting him, calling him names, gets him rock hard faster than anything else. He palms himself through his boxers and watches Dele’s eyes go black.

“Go on then,” he says.

“Go on what?”

“Stop pissing about. I’ve got stuff to get on with.”

Dele grins, and pushes his t-shirt up so it’s rucked round his armpits.

“Forgot how. Tell me.” His thumb’s resting on the psalm under his heart. _Your rod and your staff._ Eric circles his fingers round his cock and sniggers to himself. “Tell me,” Dele says, serious now, his mouth ajar.

This isn’t something they do. Eric’s face is flaming hot, and his stomach’s all gnawed up with nerves and arousal and embarrassment and the sapling realisation that this might be love. His throat goes dry.

“Slow, Del,” he says. He’s not quite stroking himself, just loosely squeezing his dick to take the edge off. He can see Dele watching him, and pushes his joggers down far enough that the blades of his hips spill out.

“Slow what?” Here’s another thing that gets him going: the charade Dele plays so well, bratty and pretending to be dumb, and if he were here, Eric would probably have his wrists up over his head, kneeling over his hips with his teeth against Dele’s clavicle, telling him to _behave._

“Touch yourself,” he hisses, nearly dropping his phone as he sinks further into the armchair. “Touch your dick.” Dele obediently licks a stripe up his palm and pushes his boxers down in one hasty, guileless motion. Eric feels a stab of emptiness somewhere behind his sternum.

He’s replayed the last time they fucked over and over again, dwelling on sparks of it – the give of Dele’s thighs under his fingertips, and the sharp spur of the top of Dele’s spine unyielding against his mouth, the way it felt like his breath was being ripped out of him, the rain hammering against the window, Dele wildly saying _fuck, fuck, Eric, just, Jesus, I’m gonna_ – if he’d known it would be the last time, he’d have made an effort to document every split-second of it, every thrust and gasp and touch. Written down a transcript, maybe, memorised every word Dele said or half-said or panted or mouthed against his ribcage. As it is, he’s left with this inadequate cacophony of scrambled images, and each time he digs it out it’s blurrier, a little more washed out each time, and now he doesn’t even jerk off thinking about it, just sits staring vacantly down the garden, thinking about Dele wiping come from the corner of his mouth with his fingertips and grinning warily at him.

Dele sighs, and it makes Eric’s spine sting. He works his hand faster.

“You hard?” he asks, and Dele nods, and tilts the phone so Eric can see, and Eric wants to say _no, no, show me your face,_ but Dele’s fingers are brittle and slender and the tip of his dick is wet, sliding in and out of them.

“Wanna taste it?” he hears Dele say, in a strange rough voice.

“Yes,” Eric says stupidly, before he can think about it, his rhythm stuttering. He’s so shit at this. There’s so much more he wants to ask for. The words are out of reach. He can feel shame blotching his cheeks, and the urge to screw his eyes shut and just finish himself off quickly with just the sound of Dele’s slick hand filling up the room, and his rutting breath, tinny and distant, is almost overwhelming.

“I like that,” Dele gasps. His phone’s shaking so badly Eric can barely make out what’s happening on the other end. “Like it when you – _fuck,_ Eric, show me, show me –”

Eric tips his phone up. His heart’s racing.

“Shit, Diet, you’re so fucking – God, you look so –”

It doesn’t matter that Dele’s thoughts are cascading messily out of him, the sentences rambling off into cut-off gasps – maybe it’s better that he can’t tie them off neatly, because that way Eric’s filling in the blanks, imagining the worst, the best things Dele might promise him – private promises he can hold onto in the dark weeks to come. He’s lost track of time. His abs twitch.

_Why have we never done this before,_ he thinks, in the minute, or two, or three, where they don’t say anything, and Dele’s looking at him, biting his lip, the motion of his wrist jostling the phone, grunting gently, _looking at him._ The distance evaporates. He could reach right through the phone right now, brush his thumb over the wet head of Dele’s cock, raise it to his mouth, sink into the taste of it. 

“Close,” Dele hisses on an exhale. His skin gleams.

“Come on, let me –”

Dele looks up at the sound of his voice, and Eric’s breath catches in his throat, as it often does when Dele looks at him like that. He forgets, though – somehow every time he forgets the depth of his eyes.

“Del,” Eric whispers. He doesn’t know what he wants to say. Just Dele’s name, over and over again, the only word that still matters or means anything. He’s so bad at this, and he doesn’t care.

Dele’s face is twisted up in pleasure, his mouth wet and open; it makes Eric come, in a hot unexpected rush, his fist quick and firm and nowhere near enough, ruining his joggers and biting his lip so Dele won’t hear the pathetic, wanting noise he makes.

“Fuck, Del, _fuck,_ ” he says, slumped in the armchair with his thighs shaking and black spots in front of his eyes, letting the hand clutching his phone flail to the side, and on the other end he vaguely hears Dele groan and say something unintelligible and desperate. By the time he’s caught his breath and picked his phone up again, Dele’s got erratic streaks of come all over his hipbones, and he’s tilting his head back with his eyes closed in something that looks like bliss.

Eric laughs. “Better than a jigsaw?”

Dele cracks his eyes open, and shakes his head in mock despair. “Shurrup,” he says languidly. Still a faint tremor in his voice.

“Hungry now, anyway,” Eric says. His lap’s sticky and uncomfortable, and it’s too hot in the sun room, his skin suddenly itchy and tight.

“Hardest bit of work you’ve done all week, innit.”

Eric sticks his middle finger up at him. He can barely lift his arm. He can feel the worry and the boredom scratching at the edges, waiting to flood back in. _When can we do this again,_ he wants to say; instead, he watches Dele sit up straighter and scowl down at his stomach.

There’s more to say, but it’s even harder to say the real stuff, the loving stuff, than it is to tell his – _boyfriend_ , maybe, though they haven’t talked about it – what he’d do to him if he were here, where he’d put his fingers and his tongue and his cock. More to say, and less time to say it.

“Battery’s about to go,” he lies, because otherwise he’ll be slouched here, his heart-rate evening out, watching Dele, trying to memorise every atom of his face, with stuff to say and no way to say it, until João calls and reminds him to focus on his obliques.

“Cos you’ve got a shit phone,” Dele says automatically. He doesn’t look like he’s moving any time soon. _Miss you,_ Dele said earlier, when his guard was down. Eric swallows thickly.

“I’ll ring you – text me when you want me to ring you,” he says.

“You gonna practise your dirty talk before then?”

_Yeah,_ Eric thinks to himself, going pink. Practise telling Dele what he wants from him. Practise telling him the other stuff, too; the real stuff. The loving stuff.

Dele hits _end_ before he can reply.


End file.
